The Tape
by wolverinacullen
Summary: James left Victoria a memento to remember him by. His love fueled her rage, her desire for revenge. How far would you go for the one you love?


_The Tape_

_(more movie centered than book)_

James set the camera on the TV for a moment as he looked around. The ballet studio was completely empty aside from himself, security shut down....it was all too easy, yet he still felt uneasy without his mate's presence. He flipped the screen around, centered, and started recording.

"Victoria. My love....the reason I didn't want you to come with me, isn't because I was sure I could do this on my own. There are seven of them, two of us, and I would never be able to forgive myself if they laid a hand on you. They are not strong. We are. And, as I know you love and appreciate sentimentality....this is for you. Victoria, I'll love you forever."

He paused it and skipped ahead, leaving a gap between where he was filming, and where he would begin.

Hours later....Edward Cullen had fumed over the footage and left it to burn. He'd erased it, but not from his memory.

The camera was in Victoria's hands. She opened it, seeing the message from her James. James....he'd told her that he'd love her forever. She'd known James wasn't always a man of sentimentality. He loved to play around with her. Spend endless time together, just doing things they enjoyed. James had been all about living in the moment with her, enjoying eternity. Now....to never be able to caress his face and watch him smile, to never be held in his arms and lifted to the sky when it rained, to never feel his lips again, it shattered her heart. She fell, if that was what it was, to her knees. Her arms instinctively curled around her chest as she was reduced to a sobbing ball. She unlocked one of her arms to reach out. Small, broken things lay in the pile of her lover's ashes. Her lover, mate, best friend, soul mate, partner....the list went on and on. She'd never dreamed of living without him. She set down the camera and touched the small, few remaining things. Mementoes of their time and love.

Two rings, mock wedding bands, since they'd had no other rings. Another he'd simply fancied and stuck on his belt. Two beads, small, rounded...and the charred, broken remnant of a watch she'd taken from one of their victims for him. It was ironic to her, James always hated being reminded of time...he'd never thought they'd have anything less than eternity. They had both been proven wrong.

She slipped the chain from around her neck. She slid his trinkets onto it. With the camera, she held it in her hands. She refused to let go. Never....never would another soul touch her heart the way James had. Never would she weep another tear. A mate for a mate, she'd kill that little bitch that stole her mate away. That pathetic excuse of a vampire would have to fight back, have to die by her hand.

She held James's ashes in her hands. This was all that was left....it made rage burn in her heart. It made her wish tears could come to quench the burning in her eyes. She rubbed them on her, feeling it. Nothing of him was left. Her clothes became ash stained, her sobs falling until nothing felt remotely right at all. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't bring this...feeling into play anymore. She moved past the pain, moving with the lightning fast speed she had. She went all of two blocks away, murdered a whole family in their home. She changed clothes-she didn't even begin to know what she was feeling, all of it was too mixed together-her necklace falling over the new shirt. She knew what she had to do.

He betray them. He left his only friends in the world to die, over some little human. She'd end him. She forced her walk to take more emotion, to hide her rage.

'That's it' she thought, 'Be the weakling you are, fall to my feet, beg for my forgiveness. If you come back to me alive I'll massacre you where you stand.'

She approached Laurent with a calm, depressed air. Then, she did her best to hold in her real emotion as she faked hard sobs. She hated his comfort. She asked it of him. _Go find her, see if they're there. I need to finish this for him._ Little did he know, she hated him with her heart. Even if he came back, he was never being forgiven. His death had been planned before his abandonment, it only caused her decision to be more concrete.

After that human, the coven. After the coven, Laurent. Maybe then, could she find peace. Maybe when her struggles were over, she would have the courage to kill herself, to be with James again. Yes, once it was over. It would be over soon enough. She promised herself that.

_End_


End file.
